Category: Independence

Dr. King fought against the majority and today we have the same fight

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In Washington DC yesterday there was a commemoration of a monument to honor Martin Luther King Jr. A number of speakers talked about Dr. King…about his words and how they inspired so many, but also spoke of his actions. And the mention of action made me hopeful. Dr. King once said: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering.” And so, today, we too, must sacrifice to take control of our lives once again. We must fight to utilize the consumer power of the majority against the concentration of power in the corporation.

Dr. King fought against the apathy of the white majority and today we also fight against the apathy of a majority

Dr King inspired others to face the powerful and established practice of discrimination. The discrimination which Dr King fought against was based on race, but it didn’t affect the mostly white US population.  Society went about its business, just like today, but today our apathy led us to a recession that almost resulted in the total economic collapse of our country.

A corporate system without consumer oversight is a system that will promote inequality

Today we have a cultural acceptance of our powerful financial system, which has slowly grown and allows us to spend less and have more money in our bank accounts.  The benefits of this system are for everyone, from the corporation to the consumer.  Still, the situation threatens the very structure of our free society.

Power follows money, and today we see a movement of power from elected officials to a corporate minority.  This concentration of power has grown so large that when the existence of a few banking and automobile corporations was threatened, the whole country was affected: Regardless if you were rich or poor, we lost businesses, jobs, and retirement savings.

We can reclaim power over the institutions if we follow Dr. King’s advice: Sacrifice

A sacrifice of personal financial growth. As Dr King sacrificed, we too must sacrifice our way of life to correct the injustices of today: We must turn away the money that trickles down from Wall Street and the corporations. We must control our own finances and earnings to take back the power we are giving the Wall Street bankers and the corporations. We must move our money to local banks and credit unions. Institutions should be dependent on us. Not us on them.

Race cannot be used to determine who is given opportunity, and neither can capital

Today, as in the past, we have a grave danger that cannot be ignored.  We cannot continue to be apathetic about the division of the country into rich and poor, just as the population before the 1960s was apathetic about the division of the country by race.  We cannot continue to watch our capital accumulate in the hands of the minority. The future of our society depends on our capacity to sacrifice and to recognize the power we have as consumers. Perhaps Dr King’s quote should be amended slightly:

We shall match OUR capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity to endure suffering.

The opposite of happiness is not sadness. It’s emptiness.

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Over a recent weekend, I had an interesting mix of experiences, one sad and one happy. One was surrounding a loss, and the other a celebration. But I realize at the end of the weekend that the two experiences are related. I came to the surprising realization that loss, the feeling of emptiness, is the opposite of true happiness, and how that knowledge can help me improve my life.

I took part in a friend’s charity run for his brother who died of cancer. As I talked with his parents, I was struck by their feeling of absence for their son. I saw a family that lost a brother, a son, a lover. I then felt that emptiness in myself as well. I felt the absence of my uncle who I had lost to cancer years ago.

The next day, I was at a community festival. It was a celebration. Music was being created as food was cooked and drinks that had been fermented were poured. I met new people and the connection I already had with my friends, who were with me, grew. I was surrounded by creation. I was happy.

We are here to create and connect

Happiness and sadness are states of feeling. Sadness isn’t in any way less than happy. Their opposite is not feeling at all. We aren’t here to live in a state of nothingness, in apathy, observing life go by. We are here to create something and forge personal relationships. But the first step, before creation, is individual acceptance.  

Creation, taking risks, loss, making a stand, connecting with others, and doing something we value is what life’s all about. And these things require sadness and pain, in addition to happiness. The alternative is existing in a state of neutrality, a stagnation in which the only movement is towards death.

We were meant to live it to the fullest.

When are you your happiest? What are you doing?

Remove the stinger from your life

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I walked up smiling, carrying my cooler. My friend called from his patio, “Is that an electric cooler?”

“Yep,” I said.

His neighbor came out on her porch and waved.

I said “Hey” and then felt a sharp pain on my foot and exclaimed, “Ow!” I quickly set down the cooler and bent over my foot.

The neighbor said with concern, “Oh, did a bee sting you?”

“I think so,” I looked down. “The stinger is stuck in my foot. Should I pull it out?”

She said, “I think you need Benadryl.”

My friend said, “I have cortisol cream, but you need to wait before applying it.”

I sat looking at the stinger and said, “I heard if you pull it out, you’ll squeeze more venom into your body.”

“Let me know, I can get the cream,’ my friend offered.

“I’m fine,” I replied, as my foot began to throb.  I looked at them for help, but all they could do is stare attentively.  Ignoring the pain, I limped further up to the house. Then I stopped.  I bent down and without thinking about the pain, I swiftly removed the stinger.

Instead of addressing the problem, we overanalyze and avoid it

My friends, meaning well, wanted to treat the symptoms before we addressed the cause. I think we do it all the time. We know what our problems are, although we distract ourselves from them. Some of us tell ourselves that we don’t have a problem, or it’s not big enough to be concerned about. We can also blame others for our situation, so we avoid taking responsibility.  Others use the delay or “I don’t have the time” option: “Once I get to my vacation, I’ll be happy, so I’ll tolerate working this job for now.”  Or there’s the simple distraction of money, better stuff, or loved ones: “Once I get that job that pays more” or “that new car” or “that girlfriend/boyfriend”, I’ll be happy.  And then there is the overanalyzing, which delays taking action.

Changing our lives may not be as easy as flicking a stinger away, but we may exaggerate the pain of removing that stinger from our lives.  So make a plan and get started on removing the stinger. Our friends, family, or partners aren’t going to remove it for us.